A lot of us enjoy discovering unusual and wild facts, but honestly, sometimes the facts we discover are so out there, we struggle to believe they are true.
Some of us even become angry when we discover something is true, because it’s so hard to believe!
Redditor ejaybugboy asked:
“What’s a terrifying fact that keeps you up at night?”
Some enjoyed thinking about the days of the week.
“Here is the etymology of the days of the week in English:”
“Sun’s Day”
“Moon’s Day”
“Tir (Tew)’s day”
“Odin (Wodin)’s day”
“Thor’s Day”
“Freya’s Day”
“Saturn’s Day”
“Two celestial bodies, four Norse gods, and suddenly one asshole from the Roman pantheon for no godd**ned reason. What the f**k is Saturn doing there?” – IronOhki
“I like how they’re called in Serbian:”
“• Utorak (Tuesday) – Taken from old Slavic and means ‘second.’”
“• Sreda (Wednesday) – Means ‘middle.’”
“• Četvrtak (Thursday) – Means ‘fourth.’”
“• Petak (Friday) – Means ‘fifth.’”
“• Subota (Saturday) – Derived from the word ‘sabbath.’”
“• Nedelja (Sunday) – Means ‘not to work,’ or ‘the day when you don’t work.’”
“• Ponedeljak (Monday) – Literally means ‘after Nedelja,’ or ‘the day after the day when you don’t work,’ because laziness is on a whole other level here apparently.’” – TheCosmicSound
Others were more interested in wild animal facts.
“There are more privately owned tigers in Texas than there are wild tigers on the rest of the planet combined.” – j_flameIV
“Crocodiles can climb trees.” – MoravianPrince
“A flock of crows is called a murder. But a flock of ravens is called an unkindness or a conspiracy. Who even comes up with this s**t?” – thweet_jethuth
“Pretty much anything to do with naked mole rats. They are neither related to moles nor rats, they can use their teeth like chopsticks, they have the social hierarchy of bees, and oh yeah, THEY ARE COLD-BLOODED.” – JustAProxyForLurking
“In the cat family, cats can either roar or purr, but can’t do both. It’s to do with the structure of the throat.”
“Cheetahs can’t roar, but I hope you find some solace in the thought of them purring happily.”
“Incidentally, cheetahs are different from other big cats in another way too – they can’t retract their claws completely.” – Lenaandcats
Some were concerned about animal breeding for profit.
“English Bulldogs can’t mate naturally. The males are literally physically incapable of mounting the females, so they either have to be helped to do so, or the females are artificially inseminated.”
“The puppies are always delivered via cesarean section since their skulls would not fit through the birth canal. They will then live their entire lives with compromised breathing.”
“But you know, they’re so cute! With their little squished in faces and their adorable snorting!”
“Sorry… I get angry when it comes to purposefully breeding broken animals.” – kabjl
“Persian cats often have breathing problems and blocked tear ducts.”
“Breed two polydactyl (double pawed) cats together and you get kittens with eyes set very far apart and crooked front legs.”
“Intentionally breeding animals to create features people consider cute or fascinating at the expense of the animal’s health should be treated as animal cruelty.” – useatyourownrisk
There were crazy food facts, too.
“Bananas are berries but strawberries are not berries.” – NikiF**kingLauda
“Raspberries, blackberries, and boysenberries are also not berries.”
“Wanna know what else is a berry? A watermelon.” – Grayseff
Some had a lot of fun talking about words.
“Cannoli is already in plural form. The singular form is Cannolo.” – JimDumb22
“Coolth is an actual word and it’s the opposite of warmth. I love using it but my girlfriend fucking hates it.” – mackenzicles
“The terms ‘hardwood’ and ‘softwood’ have nothing to do with the actual hardness of the wood, but what kind of seeds the tree produces.” – Penguin_Out_Of_A_Zoo
“Inflammable and flammable mean the same thing. ‘Flammable’ is not considered a scientifically acceptable term for things-that-catch-fire-easily. ‘Inflammable’ is the proper term and comes from the word inflame.”
“But flammable caught on because inflammable sounds too much like resistant-to-being-caught-on-fire, which is potentially quite a dangerous misunderstanding.” – Guinefort1
“The word ‘Helicopter’ is not made up of the words ‘Heli’ and ‘Copter,’ but rather ‘Helico’ and ‘Pter,’ which are Greek for ‘Spiral’ and ‘Wing.’” – Zaptagious
“That ‘unlockable’ means both: Able to be unlocked AND Unable to be locked.”
“My 11-year-old pointed this out, and I had nothing for her other than a blank stare and then thinking, ‘Well, s**t. Good job.’” – jenfers
Some were interested in grammatically-correct sentences.
“The fact that this sentence is grammatically correct: ‘All the faith he had had had had no effect.’” – WoodyPoleSmoker
“Get ready:”
“‘James, where John had had ‘had,’ had had ‘had had;’ ‘had had’ had had a better effect on the teacher.’ is correct.” – halatian6
Two Redditors knew a fun fact about potato chips.
“All crisps (chips for any Americans) in the UK go out of date on a Saturday. It annoys me because a smug friend pointed it out and i have been unsuccessful in proving him wrong.” – Rossco1874
“I had to Google this and found this from Walkers…”
“In the manufacturing sites, we work on production weeks which start on a Sunday. All product produced in that week will have the same Best Before date. As the week ends on Saturday, the Best Before date will always end on a Saturday.” – IsItMeYourLooking49
One Redditor described what would happen if sawdust was mixed with water.
“If you mix water and sawdust and freeze it, the resulting ‘ice’ melts extremely slowly. like, ‘weeks at room temperature’ slowly.” – btaylos
Some were entertained by unbelievable science facts.
“The fact that in an electric circuit, even though the electric current is electrons moving from negative pole to positive pole, the definition of a current flow is that it moves from positive to negative.”
“And similar misses in definitions in physics/science that was just decided to stay because changing definitions would be confusing at first.” – Versalis_A
Though some of the Redditors struggled to believe these facts were true, there was no arguing these facts were fascinating.
It’s an amazing reminder there is something new and fun to learn lurking around every corner.